Excerpt From My Course on Affiliate Marketing

This is from my course that will soon be appearing at www.writersonlinecourses.com

It is possible to make money in affiliate marketing. This is not a secret. Hundreds of thousands of dollars are made each year in affiliate marketing. It is a win-win situation. Web owners can earn a good income from advertising and selling a product - the affiliate. The affiliate can advertise their product across the web, to millions of prospective customers, without paying a cent until the sale is made. In a way, affiliate market sites drive ecommerce business. Without them, ecommerce sites would need to spend millions on Pay Per Click advertising, bankrupting most.


Content Based Website and Affiliate Programs

No website sells affiliate programs like a content based one. There are several benefits of content based websites.

· Multiple landing pages
· Easy to change
· Unlimited size
· Increase visitor conversion to customer
· Works well with web analytic's software
· Easy to optimize for search engines
· Easy to design without a database or content management program
· Easily a one person job
· Can be rewritten to cater to different affiliate programs
· Easy to customize for target audiences
· Easy to measure ROI - Return On Investment
· Easiest website to customize to meet the demands of different search engines


What is a Content Based Website?

A content based website is more than a portal full of articles, blogs, and forums. It is an ever-evolving sales tool. As the web master learns how to read their web analytics data, and improve their SEO strategies, they learn how to fill their with text content that serves a dual purpose. First, the content needs to be written to improve the web site's ranking. Second, the content needs a high conversion rate. The content does this by balancing information the visitor needs against their needs.

The conversion rate is the most important number for affiliate programs. Page views can indicate how successfully a SEO strategy is working. However, if none of those visitors are buying, then the web site will not make money. The content must convert visitors to consumers. The content must encourage visitors to click the affiliate button. Encouraging visitors to click is not difficult. People come to a web site looking for three things:

· A solution to a problem
· Information
· Entertainment

Very few people reach a web site with the intention of clicking an affiliate button and spending money. It is well written content that converts visitors into buyers. This is done by filling the website with content that does the following:

· Explains a need
· Explains a benefit
· Gives the visitor something free

Once the above three elements are met, the content must encourage the visitor to click through. There are two ways to encourage a visitor to click through:

· Decision to Buy
· Lead

DECISION TO BUY

This combines the visitor's reason for searching for information that solved their problem with the content's ability to offer a solution. Once the visitor has a solution they are more apt to buy.

LEAD

There are several ways to lead a visitor. One way is to write an article and then have it lead to a free ebook or tutorial. This ebook should solve basic problems and then tell the visitor how they can solve future problems. This second section is where the affiliate link is offered.

Another way to lead the visitor is Funnel Navigating. This follows the same theory as 'all roads lead to Rome.' The website promises the visitor more and more, leading them through the site until they find what they need.